A Danish court sentenced British hedge fund trader Sanjay Shah to 12 years in prison after he was found guilty of defrauding Denmark of 9 billion Danish kroner (approximately 1.3 billion US dollars) through the so-called Cum-Ex system. The sentence is the toughest ever handed down in Denmark for an economic crime.

Shah, who was extradited from Dubai last year, was considered the mastermind of an elaborate system that enabled tax refunds for never-paid dividend taxes. The judges in Glostrup, near Copenhagen, described Shah's actions as "carefully planned and systematically organized crime" that was carried out over a period of three years.

In addition to the prison sentence, the court ordered the confiscation of 7.2 billion crowns. Shah announced his intention to appeal the ruling.

The cum-ex affair affects several European countries, including Germany, Italy, and France. In Germany, investigations are underway against 1,500 people, while Denmark estimates the total damage at almost 13 billion kroner. Nine other defendants are charged there.

Shah defended himself with the argument of merely having used legal loopholes. His hedge fund company Solo Capital Partners is also the target of a British civil lawsuit in which the Danish tax authority Skat is demanding £1.4 billion in repayments. The case is considered one of the largest and most complex proceedings before the British commercial courts, with around 250,000 pages of evidence.

Shah admitted in an interview that he had been a "greedy bastard" and compared the fraud to the video game Space Invaders: "I wanted to beat my high score." The court emphasized that Shah personally benefited from the fraud and that the acts were only stopped in 2015 when the authorities halted payments due to suspicions of fraud.

Preben Bang Henriksen, legal policy spokesperson for the ruling Liberal Party, welcomed the verdict: "A harsh penalty awaits those who steal from Denmark." Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen previously stated that Shah's extradition is proof that "one does not gain impunity by staying abroad.